When the last had ceased struggling Schillingschen permitted himself one more pleasure.  He strolled over to us and blocked Fred’s way, standing with hands behind him and out-thrust chin.

“You flatter yourself, don’t you!” he sneered.  He was just drunk enough to be boastful, while thoroughly sure of what he was saying.  “You expect to tell a fine tale!  I know the psychology of the English!  I know it like a book!  Let me tell you two things:  First, your English would not believe you.  They are such supremely cocksure fools that they can not be made to believe that another so-called civilized nation would act as they, in their egoism, would be ashamed to act!  Civilization!  That is a fine word, full of false meanings!  Civilization is prudery—­sham—­false pride—­veneer!  Only the Germans are truly civilized, because they alone are not afraid to face naked animalism without its mask!  The British dare not!  They hide from it—­shut their eyes!  The fools!  If you could tell them their story they would never listen!

“Second:  You will never tell the story!  Being English, you were such dull-witted fools that you did not even hide the cartridge cases, or the bones of the Masai you shot!  Bah-ha-ha-ha-hah!  You can escape hanging yet by telling your secret.  Jail you can not escape!  Try it if you don’t believe me!  Try to escape—­go on!”

He turned on his heel and left us, striding heavily with the strength of an ox and about the alertness of a traction engine, turning his head every once in a while to enjoy the spectacle of our discomfort.

We judged it best to appear concerned, as if that was indeed our first realization of the extent of the case against us and the nature of the evidence.  But we did not find it difficult.  We were all three startled by the fear that in some way he had got wind of our plans, and that he meant to play with us cat-and-mouse fashion.

That night it stormed—­not rain, but wind from east to west, blowing such clouds of dust that one could scarcely see across the narrow streets.  Every element favored us.  Even the askari at the cross-roads, supposed to be watching the Greeks, turned his back to the wind, and what with rubbing sand in and out of smarting eyes and fingering it out of his ears, heard and saw nothing.  It was scarcely sunset when we saw both Greeks and the Goanese sneak out of the camping place in Indian file with their pockets full of cotton waste.  They had soaked the stuff in kerosene right under our eye that afternoon.

There ought to have been a sliver of moon, but the wind and dust hid it.  Fifteen minutes after sundown the only light was from the lamps in windows and the cooking fires glowing in the open here and there.  Thirty minutes later there began to be a red glow in three directions.  Less than one second after we saw the first indications of the holocaust a regular volley of shots broke out from the boma as the sentries on duty gave the general alarm.  Less than five minutes after that the whole of the southern, grass-roofed section of the town was going up in flames, and every living man, black, white, gray, mulatto, brown and mixed, was running full pelt to the scene of action.